Sheep Guarding Llama

It is strange having my family home for a little bit.  It is just temporary, though, just one week then they will be gone for a week.  These last two months are definitely the most disruptive of our lives.

I went to the office today.  At lunch time was my Medifast check in.  I’m not doing well but I am making progress.  Really slow progress.  Working off the weight that I accumulated during our time in Europe.  It took so little time to put on but takes so long to take back off.  In reality I probably put on a decent percentage of the weight that I gained while in New York and while traveling and not actually while on vacation in Europe where we were exercising non-stop.

Dominica and I talked today and decided that it was time to start thinking about getting a new car.  The Mazda PR5 just needs way too much work, nearly $900, to drive it safely and at that point it will still have no working air conditioning and tons more repairs will just be a year away.  The fuel efficiency just isn’t there anymore between brake issues and the leaking gas tank.  We could easily drop $2,000 on it to get it really into shape again.  It just is not worth that much, which is sad as the engine runs so well.

So we decided that tonight we were going to go test drive some small, fuel efficient and cost effective new American cars – namely Chevys and Fords.

We started going up to the Chevy dealer, as it was on the way, and test driving the 2012 Chevy Sonic.  It was a really nice little car and we were really impressed with it.  Fun to drive and great space inside.  Would work well for us.  We wanted to drive a Chevy Spark too but they have not yet released so no one can see one first hand.  The Spark and the Sonic are very similar but the Spark is a little smaller, cheaper and less sporty.  We were quite impressed with the Sonic and assume that this is probably the car that we will want.  The price, performance, comfort and efficiency are pretty hard to beat.

From the Chevy dealer we drove up north towards Denton where we stopped at the Ford dealer and test drove the Fiesta.  The Ford proved to not drive as well, cost quite a bit more and was so small that instead of being large and spacious like the Sonic it was actually cramped and uncomfortable.  And, quite frankly, the Ford Fiesta is embarrassingly ugly whereas the Sonic is, well, silly but in an more interesting way.   We didn’t even hang around for a discussion, Ford just isn’t making a car that makes sense for us at any price point, let alone one so much higher than a Chevy that we already liked.

On the way home we stopped by at Denny’s out on 35E for dinner.  They have a new menu with fish tacos on it now that we really like.  And we have always loved their salads.

So we are pretty serious about the Chevy Sonic now that we have driven it.  They are looking to see if they can find us a charcoal grey Sonic Turbo five speed with the brick tinted interior which is super sharp.  I am excited.  I really do need a new car and the Mazda will never be safe to use as a second car for taking the girls anywhere.  We need the ability to take the girls in our second vehicle.

We need to buy something this week because if we don’t we are stuck with logistics problems with the trip next week, which starts on Saturday.  So, if at all possible, we are hoping to have a new car by Friday.  That is going to be tough, though.

 

Monday and back to the office.  The is my one week with the family at home before they leave again for another week.  Most of our focus this week is on getting the house cleaned up as Dominica’s family is coming here on Friday to stay for the night before heading out to the lake house near Canton, Texas on Saturday morning where they are all going to be spending the week together.

I came home for lunch today and spent some time with the family.  Then back to the office.

I had a long conversation with Coraid today.  Learned a bit more about them.  I have not worked with their storage gear before so it was rather interesting.

Quiet evening at home just spending time with the girls and some light cleaning.

 

Today is Sunday and I am on the home stretch of Mass Effect.  I started playing it somewhere around December so this is about eight months of Mass Effect being the only game that I have played.  I am really anxious to see the ending of the last game.  Three games, three novels (I am only halfway through the last novel) and about one hundred and ten hours put into it.

We stayed home all day today.  Dominica cooked and we are doing pretty well at getting back into the groove with our Medifast plan.  I can’t believe that I have been doing that diet for well over a year now.

This evening Liesl decided to plop down on the couch and watch me play Mass Effect almost to completion.  She eventually fell asleep but before she did she was sitting right beside me snuggling for hours as I worked my way through the final battles of the game.

It was about one in the morning when I finally finished Mass Effect.  I can’t believe that it is done… all three games completed.  One hundred and ten hours of game play!  I can’t say that I was happy with the ending, it was not at all what I was expecting and it did a really poor job of wrapping up a story that I had been really engrossed in for such a long time.  I like that they did something unexpected and put in a serious twist but there were so many loose ends just left open at the end.  Kind of disappointing.  I’m not unhappy with the actual outcome, but with the lack of closure, I think.

Finally a weekend at home with my family.  No plans for today but to hang out with the kids at the house.  Not going anywhere, not really doing anything.

I got up early with the kids this morning and Dominica slept in for a while.  So the girls and I had some time to just play on our own.  Both of them were up pretty early.

I got to play a bit of Mass Effect 3 today.  I am nearing the end of the game so while I could I advanced on it a bit.  Liesl had a ton of fun watching me to “resource gathering.”  In the game you fly around to different systems and explore planets looking for resources and sometimes the bad guys show up and chase you.  Liesl watched intently for hours and would say “Daddy, you found something!”  Or “Scan that one daddy!”  She really had fun.  Part of the time she snuggled with me on the couch.  Part of the time she was in the living room showing Luciana how to play with her old toys and was watching through the opening in the playroom wall.  So cute.

I can’t wait until my girls are old enough to really play games that are more fun.  Liesl is starting to get there, she has been playing the Lego video games.  We figured out that the 360 and PS3 are much easier for her to use than the Wii.  Nintendo is so into whacky controls that Liesl gets confused with their bizarre controllers.  But the joysticks she can just use and they make sense to her.

We did some cleaning today.  The house is, of course, a disaster of toys as the girls explore their toy collections again.  And it is a mess from all of the stuff that came back from our vacation and from storage at dad’s.  We only have until Friday before Dominica’s parents come to visit so we want it to be cleaned up by then.  There is a lot to do.

I had to go to the office today but it is my only day that I will be out of the house.  I saw the girls yesterday and will see them this weekend.  I am not working this weekend and just spending time with the family so that will be good.

I came home at lunch today and hung out some more.  Trying to get as much time in with the girls as possible.

This evening I grabbed dinner from Brookhaven for the family.  It was honey chipotle glazed salmon today.  Awesome.  Dominica was not exactly thrilled as she doesn’t really like salmon anymore ever since being pregnant with Luciana.  Sucks that she doesn’t like salmon as that is what is available everywhere these days.

We hung out in the playroom at watched Good Luck Charlie this evening.